U.S. seeks new means to protect air travelers / Hunt on for backup to anti-missile laser

Paul J. Caffera, Special to The Chronicle

Published 4:00 am, Monday, April 24, 2006

Two years after casting aside competing systems and focusing on laser-based technology, the Department of Homeland Security is soliciting bids for new methods of protecting air travelers from possible terrorist missile attacks.

The government has spent or budgeted more than $160 million on its anti-missile program, most of that on a technology called Directed Infrared Countermeasures (DIRCM) that uses one or more lasers to send false signals to an attacking missile's homing mechanism. The false signals cause the missile to stop tracking the targeted aircraft.

The military is rapidly transitioning its aircraft to laser systems to meet the threat from ever more sophisticated and more readily available shoulder-fired missiles.

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On April 14, however, the Department of Homeland Security invited companies to submit proposals for alternative anti-missile systems. The department did not return several calls seeking comment on the reasons for the new program, which has been budgeted at $7 million.

Over the last three decades, 43 civilian aircraft have been hit by portable missiles known in the military as Man Portable Air Defense Systems, or MANPADS, and 30 of these have been lost. Nearly a thousand passengers and crew have died in these attacks. Although none has occurred within the United States, the FBI has warned local law enforcement of the threat here.

A self-contained portable missile system weighs only about 35 pounds, can fit into a car, and some of the supersonic missiles they launch can climb to 18,000 feet in seconds. Their relative small size and portability concern authorities worried about smuggling.

The State Department's Web site warns that portable missiles "pose a serious potential threat to passenger air travel, the commercial aviation industry and military aircraft around the world."

"MANPADS are extremely problematic," Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., a member of the House Aviation Subcommittee, told The Chronicle. "This industry (commercial airlines) constitutes 10 percent of our GDP (gross domestic product), and it is pretty clear that terrorists are sophisticated people. A MANPADS attack would be a massive blow to an industry that is already teetering. People would not go back to flying until the issue was solved."

There is a relatively small universe of technologies to protect aircraft from portable missiles. In 2004, the Department of Homeland Security decided to focus exclusively on the DIRCM system. But concerns about the costs of the laser-based approach have caused many -- especially the airline industry -- to object.

The Air Transport Association, an industry group that represents the nation's largest airlines, characterizes plans to install the laser system as a multibillion-dollar mistake.

A 2005 study by Rand, the Santa Monica-based research organization, estimated the cost of installing a laser jammer on each of the 6,800 commercial aircraft in the U.S. fleet to be $11 billion, plus an additional $2.1 billion annually for maintenance.

At a conference on portable missiles in December in Washington, John Meenan, executive vice president of the Air Transport Association, said that by focusing on two vendors of the laser system to the exclusion of other technology, the Department of Homeland Security had given the American public "two flavors of vanilla."

Meenan said airlines make on average "$500 per trip" and cannot afford to pay for the laser system. "Using (the department's) optimal numbers ... the cost of operating these systems (is) about $800 per trip," Meenan said, or about $5 per seat.

"I am sure ... the folks who are looking at how to harm the United States would like nothing better than to see us spend a hundred billion dollars on something like this and then turn around and do something else entirely."

The new homeland security request for proposals includes a solicitation for ground-based systems to protect airports in Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Newark, N.J., San Diego and Washington, D.C. Ground-based missile protection appeals to the cost hawks. Raytheon Co.'s Vigilant Eagle system, a ground-based defense, would cost $25 million per airport if at least 25 were purchased, said company spokeswoman Sara Hammond.

The decision to look to ground-based systems is political and reflects the influence of the airline industry, said a Department of Homeland Security official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

"A ground-based system will not give us protection where we most need it," in high-threat locations overseas, he said.